Tag: family

In a word, living in Australia is great . . . “a lucky country” in the downunder world, geographically speaking that is. Everything else is top of the world . . . rich in natural resources, largest continental island in the world, beautiful weather with sun, surf & sand for fun lovers, good first class education, opportunities for one & all in a truly cosmopolitan nation. Most importantly, fairness is practised in true meritocratic way.

I am a Chinese by descent . . . an Australian by consent. My family & I have been in Perth, Western Australia since 1982, that is more than quarter of my life. It is indeed a fortunate life with my three offsprings all acquiring tertiary education from a PhD holder, a specialist medical doctor to a civil engineer.

Though born & bred in Malaysia, I could never consider myself a Malaysian because of the non meritocratic system of extreme corrupt government since independence from British colonial rule. Every non Malay race is marginalised in all aspects of human endeavour & life. Needless for me to go into any detail of the ongoing unfairness & injustice upon looking back & looking in from outside. There’s no meritocracy but sheer “democrazy”. Brain drain from the country is no surprise. What’s Malaysia’s loss is gain to countries like Singapore, Australia, US, UK & Canada.

Everyone wants & deserves a good life, but not to expect & demand on hand-outs, for that would be tantamounting to living on your knees rather than dying on your feet. You’ve got to work, not only working hard but working smart as well. Work is God’s design for our natural living.

In Australia the aged are well taken of. Medical care can be said to be par excellence. All possible help are extended to make life of the aged comfortable & safe. Under the scheme known as Home & Community Care (HACC), there are organisations offering facilities to take good care of you, especially as the song goes “When you grow too old to dream, you’d have them to remember”.

Really, old people can keep on living in their own home, best place to be, rather than to scale down moving to units or aged homes, unless it is absolutely necessary. If you are living alone, Red Cross provides visitor service whereby a visitor would come by on a regular basis to keep you company, have a chat with you, have tea or a game of card, or take you out shopping or medical appointments. Other organisations also provide such a service & other home services as well like domestic cleaning, minor home maintenance, gardening.

There’s that Triple A Care (Australian Asian Aged Care Program) with multiple home & community care services. Charges for the services are subsidised & all that is required is $8 per hour.

TADWA’s (Technology Assisting Disability WA) purpose is to improve the quality & enjoyment of life for people with disabilities, older people & those caring for them through the application of technology & the skills of volunteers & staff. For our home, they came & installed safety railings for our steep driveway, front & back garden steps. All we need pay pay is for the materials.

In the case of Chorus (its old name Volunteer Task Force) apart from providing gardening service & other domestic services, organises outings to places of interest & lunches. I am particularly impressed by their friendliness,helpfulness with extreme care & attention.`The staff & the team of volunteers are about the nicest people you will ever meet. A stranger is but a friend you have not met. You can have hundreds of friends`but none near you or ever in sight, you might just as well be by yourself.

Old habits die hard. Nothing like living the life you are so accustomed to`. . . free & easy to be living in your own home.`A man’s home is his castle, however modest or otherwise.`

In the final analysis, I wish the best for all Malaysians. I would further add by quoting what the DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said: ” If we love Malaysia, we must unite as Malaysian patriots to save Malaysia from corruption, kleptocracy, injustices, exploitation and the fate of a third-world nation”.““““`“““““““““

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The photos and video of Ting Tsu-chi carrying his mother to the hospital have gone viral. (Internet photo)

Filial piety has become a hot issue in Taiwan, according to a Staff reporter on 2012-03-06, after video of a middle-aged man carrying his frail mother into the Chi Mei Hospital went viral, touching hearts all over the country. Now people want to know more about the man in the video.

This is no sermon nor a nag ; it’s a very simple message. The article below was written by Dr. Chris Anthony . To those of you who still have their parents living , I like to share this good piece of regret that I had not read it earlier during the days when both my parents were still alive.

Read on ……

The time is now.

It is better to give them a little time now than to give them the world when they are gone. The world is full of sons and daughters like you and I.

I had a marvellous mother, who loved me, sacrificed for me and helped me in every way possible. In all of my growing up from childhood through school and eventually marriage, my mother was always at my side.

And when I needed help with my little ones, she was there for me. A few years ago, we buried this wonderful woman.Can you imagine how I felt when I returned home and found a poem in her drawer, written by my mom:

I found time for everyone and everything else But I never made time for her.

It would have been easy to drop in for a cup of tea And a hug but my friends came first.

Would any of them have done for me what my mother did?

I know the answer.

When I called mom on the phone,

I was always in a hurry.

I feel ashamed when I think of the times I cut her off,

The times I retorted back to her,

The times I glared at her in an angry mood when she wanted to correct me and guide me through the correct path.

I remember too, the times I could have included her in a trip out ,but did not.

My children loved Grandma from the times they were babies.

They often turn to her for comfort and advice.

She understood them.

I realize now that I was too critical,

Too short-tempered, too stingy with praise.

Grandma gave them unconditional love.

The world is filled with sons, daughters and a child like me.

I hope they see themselves in this letter and realize from it.

If this has touched you, please pass it on to all the sons and Daughters who have to praise their Mom for everything they are today.

Modern Day Family

Reflections

This story highlights that we must do whatever we can when our parents are alive to appreciate what we say or do, however little that may be.

Very often we are willing to spend thousands to give them a grand funeral with the most elaborate preparations and expensive coffins and so on. We are willing have memorials without fail year after year. We give alms in memory of our late parents but we could not afford to spend some time with them when they were with us before their death.

We were too busy with our lives.

How much do we treasure our parents? They may not be perfect but it is undeniable that they deserve more than what we are doing for them now.

We may be cruel to them or we may even be criminals but to our parents we are still good children and they continue to justify why have we become bad. They blame everybody else for their children being bad except them as they believe their children cannot have gone bad by themselves.

Nobody in the world does that. Many will flock to us when we are in a position to give but none when we are down and out. Our parents are the only ones who will be there with us and for us whether we are good or bad, up or down till their last breaths.

Let us search our hearts to see where we have placed our parents in it. If they are not in our hearts it is time to make a place for them there now. If they already there as in many of us, it is time to give them a little more. Let us not do something or fail to do it that we will regret later as it will be too late.

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Filial piety is the duty that every Mother’s son or daughter , towards his / her parents. You can have many wives , husbands , mistresses , lovers , friends ; but you only have One biological Mother , Father. If you are a priviledged child with a Nanny , then the Nanny deserves your filial piety because she was the one who groomed you in your childhood years.

It is no use to spend lots of money for your parents’ funeral becos they are not able to cherish what you do ; the lavish funeral rites or expensive coffin that you spend on them ONLY BENEFIT the funeral caretakers ; nobody bothers how much you spend on your parents when they are dead. You may be magnanimous to donate money to charity in memorium of your parents …… who cares !!!

Hence , if you wanna to spend money on your parents , do it when they are still alive and able to appreciate and cherish your love.

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We have heard of Emperors and Maharajahs having concubines and harems, but here’s Ziona Chana, a 66-year-old Indian man who has 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren, is probably the head of the world’s biggest family, according to Reuters.

The big family lives in a four-storey mansion with 100 rooms in a village in Mizoram, northeast India. Chana’s wives and children live in different rooms but share one kitchen.

Chana said that he in his younger days once married 10 women in only one year. He enjoys his own double bed while his wives have to make do with communal dormitories. He keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further away – and there is a rotation system for who visits Mr Chana’s bedroom.

He considered himself a lucky man since he is given so many people to look after. Mr Chana told the Sun: ‘Today I feel like God‘s special child. He’s given me so many people to look after. I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world’s largest family.’

Although Chana has already had a 167-member family, he still would like to expand it and “go to any extent to marry. ”To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,” he said. One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them.

Rinkmini, one of Mr Chana’s wives who is 35 years old, said: ‘We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.

She says Mr Chana noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter asking for her hand in marriage.

Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on ‘mutual love and respect’ And Mr Chana, whose religious sect has 4,000 members, says he has not stopped looking for new wives.

The family is organised with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi organising her fellow partners to perform household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals.

One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of rice.

Chana is also the head of a local Christian religious sect which allows polygamy.

One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them.

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Father’s Day in Canada, the U.K. and the United States is celebrated on the third Sunday in June. In Australia, Father’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in September. Why Australia chooses to be different, I have no clue. This year it falls on 5 September.

To me, Father’s Day is simple & pleasurable just to have family members getting together at home & have a day of eats, Karaoke singing, fun & laughter & fellowship. It’s generally a chance for families to get together and celebrate in similar way to Mother’s Day. Dads are spoilt and made to feel special & pampered.

Our two grandsons in Perth, Mattheson (7) & Nathanael (2), are wonderful to be around – for they sure make you want to live life all over again! Our other two grandchildren, Daniel (7 plus) and Stephanie (2 plus), live in Hong Kong. If only they could be around as well . . . but an army of four might bring the roof down!

It is a day for people to show their appreciation for fathers and father figures. Father figures may include stepfathers, fathers-in-law, guardians (e.g. foster parents), and family friends.

Cousins Catching Up with Old Times

I don’t expect presents but I sure appreciate our siblings’ presence. To other fathers, it may be a day out in the park, at the movies, at a zoo, or another place of interest . . . or getting handmade or Hallmark cards, food baskets, chocolates, clothing, gift vouchers etc.

This Father’s Day is very special indeed! We happen to have our relatives visiting from abroad . . . sister-in-law Beng from Singapore with her daughter-in-law Dawn & daughter Rachel, sister-in-law Hwa from Taiping, Malaysia. Others in the merry crowd include our cousins in Perth . . . Marie with her spouse Nigel and Joseph with his darling wife Mabel. Of course, our daughter Agnes & hubby Darren, our youngest son Andrew with Fiona – still very much the newly-wed on their honeymoon!

To me, home gathering is best. Each participating family member bringing along a dish of goodies to share in what I would call a “Potbless Fellowship” and with Karaoke singing . . . food galore . . . nothing seems more memorable!

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Father’s day is not a holiday in Australia, since it’s a Sunday.

There are some suggestions that the idea of Father’s Day may have its origin in pagan sun worship. Some branches of paganism see the sun as the father of the universe.

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Earl Nightingale, once renowned as the Dean of Motivation, referred “attitude” as the “The Strangest Secret”. It’s a secret that spells magic because that one simple word can transform your life.

Before him, Frederick Langbridge (1849-1923), English poet & religious writer, famously expressed it well when he wrote, “Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”

It is our disposition, perspective, viewpoint, or outlook. It is how we view the world. Our life is a reflection of our attitude. Here’s a little story for illustration:

One day, a rich family left on a trip to the country. The father’s sole firm purpose was to show his son how poor people can be. They spent a day & a night in the farm of a very poor family.

When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“Very good Dad!”

“And what did you learn?”

The son answered, “We have one dog at home. I saw they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon.”

When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless. His son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are!”

Now, isn’t it true that it all depends on the way you look at things? If you have love, friends, family, health, good humour and a positive attitude towards life – you’ve got everything!

You can’t buy any of these things, that’s why we say that the best things in life are free. With the right attitude, you can have all the material possessions you can imagine, fulfilling your hope, dreams & aspiration. But if you are poor in spirit, you have nothing!